So... this Star Wars story is going to start Luke Skywalker with a troubled youth and daddy issues ( <- Holy crap, J.J Abrams is a genius. He's been setting up this up for years) who has to stop a future member of the Empire from destroying a planet with a black hole?

If this rumour is true then I'm really excited to see what he can do with Star Wars. Based on what he did with Trek he would have been my first choice regardless. Star Trek is probably the only franchise that has a bible thicker than the Star Wars universe which ties the hands of writers yet he was able to deliver an awesome movie while staying true to the Trek universe.

Meh, Abrams brought an edge back to the hokeyness that we're the TNG films. It was pastuerized fodder, in a "shiny happy world where everyone smiles". Its fitting that the darkest one, Nemisis got the least praise.

And those old Trek films only hold up due camp and comfort. 2 and 3, good, but the rest, meh, okay at best.

pehawk wrote:Meh, Abrams brought an edge back to the hokeyness that we're the TNG films. It was pastuerized fodder, in a "shiny happy world where everyone smiles". Its fitting that the darkest one, Nemisis got the least praise.

And those old Trek films only hold up due camp and comfort. 2 and 3, good, but the rest, meh, okay at best.

That's usually the only reason that AbramsTrek holds up for people: because it's not "Nemesis". If it were an ordinary Michael Bay film, it'd get yawned at like most modern trash.

Oh please. All the TNG movies are great? Star Trek 4 and 5 are top-shelf?

I love the Trek movies, all of them. Seen them 100's of times...but they're not REALLY great films. Hell, Galaxy Quest is 3rd best ever behind Kahn and Abrams one. We weren't subjected to the insertion of corny political correctness "see, we can get along" references using Worf as the contrast. Or the forced one-liners between Kirk and Bones, that bordered on satire of itself in 4, 5 and 6.

Abrams made the characters three dimensional, which, ya know, adds depth. You finally knew why Kirk was reckless. Spock's kind of a dick and a messed up dude. Etc, etc, etc. The threat his villian posed seemed more realistic and alot less houkey.

You're the baseball writer who didn't vote Ripken into Cooperstown the first time, because "no one's ever got 100% of the vote". Or, that annoying movie critic who gave No Country a thumbs down, just to stand out.

I'm not even an Abrams fan, but to compare him on any level to Bay is literally like arguing that Kotite's on par with Parcells.

pehawk wrote:We weren't subjected to the insertion of corny political correctness "see, we can get along" references using Worf as the contrast.

You know what's funny? Almost every critic of pre-Abrams Trek I've ever known has eventually gone here. "Ugh, that pretentious TNG, so pretentious and bland." It's all anyone seems to remember. It's an interesting commentary on how far our tastes have come in twenty years, given that TNG used to be one of the biggest shows on television and that there were, in fact, a lot of people who liked TNG for exactly what it was. Just because you weren't one of them, doesn't invalidate how they enjoyed the show. And I think it's understandable that those people feel a bit of a loss when the franchise is reduced to pure blaring action. (If you want better Trek, watch DS9 if you haven't already. Much smarter writing.)

Me? As a diehard Christian, I'm not one for the pure humanism side. I'm actually with you there. That warm, happy universe that Trek portrays will never happen, and it's arrogance to think otherwise. But at least these shows tried to be about something. TNG had a lot of great episodes that managed to explore the human condition without being preachy. They tried to think. Yeah, X, IX, V, they all sucked, but they tried to say something. Identity and destiny in "Nemesis", conscience and integrity in "Insurrection", the search for God in "V"...big ideas, if perhaps badly executed.

What was AbramsTrek about? Some vague hint at daddy issues? Gee, never seen THAT before. From Abrams. In every series he's created.

Abrams made the characters three dimensional, which, ya know, adds depth. You finally knew why Kirk was reckless. Spock's kind of a dick and a messed up dude. Etc, etc, etc. The threat his villian posed seemed more realistic and alot less houkey.

This movie wasn't Scorcese. Kirk was an idiot who could have gotten the Enterprise destroyed without Spock's help at the end. Spock saw his mommy die, waaahhh, that's original. The villain was boring and almost every movie critic I've read has agreed to at least that much. This wasn't depth, it was archetypes. Exactly why I think Abrams is better suited for Star Wars and why Trek is better suited for TV.

And...how exactly did a CADET who just got caught cheating on the Academy's most prestigious command exam, get promoted to first officer of the Federation flagship? Eyeroll. One of the many moments where the movie jumped the shark and landed in "dumb action movie" territory.

You're the baseball writer who didn't vote Ripken into Cooperstown the first time, because "no one's ever got 100% of the vote". Or, that annoying movie critic who gave No Country a thumbs down, just to stand out.

Funny...you wanna know who DID stand out and give Trek a thumbs down? Roger Ebert. At least someone recognized that there was little point to this film.

And, you obviously dont know Star Trek if you didn't realize Abrams didn't make up Kirk cheatin on the test. Rodenberry did. Again, referenced in Kahn.

I am very well aware of that. But Khan never referenced Kirk going from a busted cadet to first officer of the Starfleet flagship in the same day, in the midst of a crisis. That's a strain.

In a Sci Fi movie that includes magic antimatter that destroys planets but not the container it is in or the needle used to slurp it up, that is your main beef? Nerds! I think maybe you just hate change. You women are so hard to understand.Kirk nailed a green lady, got spock pinched, and went with his gut in a low percentage situation. Roddenberry would approve.

And, you obviously dont know Star Trek if you didn't realize Abrams didn't make up Kirk cheatin on the test. Rodenberry did. Again, referenced in Kahn.

I am very well aware of that. But Khan never referenced Kirk going from a busted cadet to first officer of the Starfleet flagship in the same day, in the midst of a crisis. That's a strain.

In a Sci Fi movie that includes magic antimatter that destroys planets but not the container it is in or the needle used to slurp it up, that is your main beef? Nerds! I think maybe you just hate change. You women are so hard to understand.Kirk nailed a green lady, got spock pinched, and went with his gut in a low percentage situation. Roddenberry would approve.

Montana's main problem with Abrams' Trek is that it didn't include enough babbling about dilithium crystals and other nonsense to make the show 'sound' science-y.

Believe it or not, Pe, I'm out of my depth in this thread as it relates to Star Trek. I know next to nothing about the Star Trek universe. I'm assuming you're referring to the "beam me up, Scotty" thing, though?

Agreed that Del Toro would've been the better choice. One of the many issues with ep 1-3 was the lack of models/puppets vs CGI. The original trilogy looked more realistic because of space being crude oil and milk, models of the ships, etc.

I've never seen an Abrams film aside from his Trek, which was a real challenge. The chance of success was less than 1%, because the universe answers to fanatical base. And, as I said before, Abrams actually focused on the personalities and required acting. Which, I LOVE.

My favorite film all-time is the Apostle, I love charectar driven films. But, I also dig Trek and popcorn flicks. Abrams AT least added some dimension to the crew.

pehawk wrote:In the original films, the crew seemed charactatures and one-liners.

They seemed that way in BOTH versions, and I think that was a conscious choice by Abrams. Chekov the young guy, Sulu the intense navigator, Uhura the mystery, McCoy the crusty humanitarian, Scotty the uptight engineer, all spouting their one-liners...Abrams stuck to this format in the movie, really. I didn't see much more than that. And I suppose it was a valid choice in that light. But I didn't like it, because I was raised in the TNG era where the episodic format allowed for more depth.

I think my favorite part of Scalzi's thoughts on this was "...or Paul Verhoeven (oh, God, Paul Verhoeven)." Can't say the Mos Eisley Cantina scene wouldn't have been 100% better with an extra boobie, can ya?

World Champion Seattle Seahawks football. It's an addiction, and there is no cure.Les Norton - gone but never forgotten. Rest in blue and green peace, my friend.

Why is Abrams getting love or hate on the plot of Star Trek? He didn't write it, he directed it. JJ Abrams comes off as a cool nerd and uses fanboy attention on his projects. He will treat Star Wars with more love than Lucas did with his monstrosities.

Super 8 wasn't a great movie, but it FELT like an old school Spielberg movie, well mostly. And that was its intended goal. It wasn't as good as ET or Close Encounters, but it was a hell of a lot better than AI. The same attention will be paid to Star Wars, it will feel a lot more like the original movies.

MontanaHawk05 wrote:Because he works with too many hack writers and brings them onto his projects.

The writer was chosen before the director for this project.

MontanaHawk05 wrote:Hilarious how much goodwill Abrams gets by NOT being the last guy.

I liked Abrams from the announcement of the Disney buy. You can go look it up (I know you're a big fan of that).

Star Trek nerds have always been way more particular than Star Wars nerds. I don't think Abrams was a good fit for Star Trek, he's too raw and focuses more on emotions and action than the tech-aspect. Star Wars is perfect for him.

George Lucas focused on CGI and effects and butchered his own masterpiece. Any director could raise that bar.

MontanaHawk05 wrote:Hilarious how much goodwill Abrams gets by NOT being the last guy.

This is normally a poor argument, but in this case, I'd say it's somewhat fair and justified. A tremendous number of random pieces of luck and happenstance came together to make the original Star Wars trilogy what it was, and George Lucas not having control over most of it was critically important. The best thing he ever did for his franchise was to sell it. I'll be very curious to see what all Disney does with it.

12evanf wrote:Star Trek nerds have always been way more particular than Star Wars nerds. I don't think Abrams was a good fit for Star Trek, he's too raw and focuses more on emotions and action than the tech-aspect. Star Wars is perfect for him.

I could care less about tech. Everyone thinks the Abrams detractors are just upset about the tech stuff. The script for that movie was terrible, just plain poorly written and kept pulling me out of the movie with "why did that just happen?" questions that even ordinary people would ask. And Abrams made some choices that made little sense and distracted from things, turning it from a "this is how the future could really be" movie of ideas into just another slick, superficial "don't think too hard" popcorn movie. That's a loss that a lot of Trekkies were frustrated with.

RolandDeschain wrote:

MontanaHawk05 wrote:Hilarious how much goodwill Abrams gets by NOT being the last guy.

This is normally a poor argument, but in this case, I'd say it's somewhat fair and justified. A tremendous number of random pieces of luck and happenstance came together to make the original Star Wars trilogy what it was, and George Lucas not having control over most of it was critically important. The best thing he ever did for his franchise was to sell it. I'll be very curious to see what all Disney does with it.

I do believe Lucas originally had Han Solo looking more like Greedo and C3PO being an alien garbage salesman or some ridiculous stuff. I loved seeing Lawrence Kasdan hired to help with Episode VII. I think Abrams will be a good fit for Star Wars.

RolandDeschain wrote:I just hope they avoid the abortion that is the 20-books-too-long Yuuzhan Vong series. Most of those were utter crap and boring as hell. Pretty much anything by Zahn is a win, though.

They've already said the movies will be an original story and won't be based on any of the existing EU works.

You are absolutely entitled to state your opinion whenever you wish, and I am absolutely entitled to point out the stupidity of that opinion with the same frequency.